- Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scored 97 off 29 against SRH on Wednesday, breaking records along the way.
- His 65 sixes so far this season is the most by any player in a single IPL campaign.
- Sooryavanshi currently has 680 runs in IPL 2026, and is in possession of the Orange Cap.
IPL 2026 has belonged to Vaibhav Sooryavanshi so far. Well, the job isn’t done yet. But this is already one of the all-time great seasons with the bat in IPL history. The 15-year-old left-hander, in only his second IPL campaign, has had a season worthy of all-time great levels of praise. One you’d consider on par or better than Kohli 2016, Warner 2016, Buttler 2022, Gill 2023 or any of Gayle’s early 2010s seasons.
Speaking of Chris Gayle though, Sooryavanshi broke one of the destructive left-hander’s long-standing records and came mighty close to another. At the end of his 29-ball 97 against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday, Sooryavanshi had hit 65 sixes this season, six more than Gayle’s 59 in 2012. Sooryavanshi was also just one hit away from breaking Gayle’s fastest T20 hundred record.
Over the season though, the Rajasthan opener has scored 680 runs at a strike rate of 242.85 so far. The next highest season run tally at a 240+ strike rate is Romario Shepherd’s 70 from the 2025 campaign. Sooryavanshi is 15 years old.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and the big time
When he was bought by the Royals in the 2025 IPL Auction, there were murmurs about whether Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was ready for this stage. Although he had impressed at age-group events, Sooryavanshi only had one T20 appearance and all of 13 runs to his name in the format.
Those fears were put to rest little by little. First, the youngster hit Shardul Thakur for six off his first ball in the IPL. Two games later, he had scored his first IPL century against RR’s next opponents – the Gujarat Titans. Again, he is 15 years old now. He was 14 then.
It isn’t just the numbers either that make this all seem so impressive. The confidence with which Sooryavanshi plays his shots resembles that of a batter with years behind him in the professional game.
The youngster’s beautiful bat swing puts him in good stead for several such innings. And it isn’t just me saying it, Sachin Tendulkar himself dropped praise on X for Sooryavanshi post his near-record-breaking 97 on Wednesday.
If anything, it just goes to show that we are in the presence of greatness. And one can’t help but wonder that if he’s this good at 15, how good can he eventually become?
What next for the child prodigy?
The IPL isn’t the only place that Sooryavanshi has shown absolute disdain for what people call ‘pressure’. In the under-19 World Cup final earlier this year, the explosive opener scored 175 off just 80 balls in the final as India beat England by 100 runs.
With 439 runs to his name, the Indian opener was only the second highest run-scorer in the tournament behind England’s Ben Mayes (444). But the Indian dasher’s runs came at a strike rate of nearly 170. Yes, this was a 50-over tournament.
But the larger point here is that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has shown that he belongs in an India jersey before. Maybe only at the under-19 level. But he has since shown that he can hang with the very best, dominating the likes of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and more. Maybe he could do it at the international stage too and you won’t know till you give it a shot.
The Indian men’s side have tours of Ireland, England and Zimbabwe coming up in June and July, where they will play 10 T20Is. Should Sooryavanshi be on that flight? This writer definitely thinks so. Whose place should he take? Thankfully, this writer isn’t on the selection panel that has to make that decision.
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